Annual Brewfest Features Beer, Food and Music

Hundreds came out to enjoy the sixth annual Newtown Brewfest on Saturday at the . The event, sponsored by the Newtown Corporation, featured more than 175 beers, local food and live music.

The festival had something for all types of beer lovers, with dozens of brewers represented. Anheuser-Busch offered tastings of Bud Light Lime, Landshark lager, spiked teas and lemonades, plus lesser-known brews like their Shock Top Belgian-style white ale and a blueberry lager. Guinness poured its hard to find nine percent alcohol Foreign Extra Stout and its new Black Lager. Guinness staff were on hand to talk about the beers and upcoming new products.

Local breweries were well represented. Easton’s Weyerbacher sampled their Merry Monks, Belgian style Abby Tripel, Verbote Belgian style Pale Ale and Big Ern. Downingtown’s Victory Brewing Company featured Hop Wallop and their seasonal Moonglow Weizenbock, a dark amber wheat beer. Philadelphia Brewing Company sampled its Walt Wit Belgian style white, Joe Coffee Porter and unique Harvest from the Hood that is made every Fall with locally-grown, freshly harvested hand picked hops.

Vermont’s Magic Hat Brewery had a line throughout the day, with guests eagerly sampling #9 Pale Ale, Circus Boy unfiltered hefeweizen and Single Chair English ale. California’s Sierra Nevada poured their famous pale ale and lesser known Torpedo American-style Indian pale ale.

A VIP tent, which required an upgraded ticket to enter, featured a number of rare beers. The centerpiece beer of the VIP tent was the Brooklyn Black Ops that retails at $200 a case and is rarely seen at a festival. The beer, a Russian inperial stout, is aged in bourbon barrels and bottled conditioned with champagne yeast. Production is limited to around 1,000 cases a year, making it a treat for the beer aficionados who flocked to the VIP tent.

Local home brewers got in on the act this year with their own tent. Attendees got to sample 10 home brewed beers and vote for their favorite. Prizes were given to the top three beers.

Food was plentiful, with local restaurants strongly featured. Justin Kaplan of Palate was cooking up a pulled short rib sandwich, Blossoms catering had Carribean food like jerk chicken amd Jamaican beef patties, and the Green Parrot was serving sausage sandwiches.

The longest line formed at Nomad Pizza, a Hopewell, N.J. based restaurant that brought its pizza truck to the event. The converted truck has a wood fired brick oven, commercial refrigerator, three bay sink, a hand wash sink, a hot water heater, a generator, a retractable awning, lights, work tables, serving tables and on-board sound system. Their pizza is made with fresh mozzarella and homemade tomato sauce with the unique brick oven giving a smoky flavor to the crispy crust.

Live music played throughout the day with local bands Stolen Rhodes, Rose Parade and Stems and Seeds. The swim club’s three ping pong tables were taken over by guests playing beer pong and the picnic area became a dining room for the food vendors.

Attendees wore costumes, met for birthday celebrations and celebrated all things beer.

Proceeds from the event will be used to market and advertise the many community events that go on in town, including Welcome Day, the holiday parade, Market Day, the First Fourth parade and fireworks, the Library 5K and more, organizers said. Some of the proceeds will also be donated to local charitable organizations.